Word: irone
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...decide to ride through the streets of old Georgetown, and you are astounded at the change in appearance. You note handsome old houses, through which you can walk on the payment of a small sum. You note the narrow streets, the slower pace, the rusty iron gates, the old warehouses on the river-front. You journey out Conduit Road along the old canal, and you are haunted with the scenes of your history books. If you're an extrovert you may think of what the Industrial Revolution really meant...
...Braibant's story is the old one of the vampire mother whose dominating ways kill any nascent sense of independence in her children. The "iron" mother, Marlise Bertaud, gets her tremendous power through avarice. She worships at a strong box, spends her evenings balancing her accounts, is as shrewd as a Chinese banker in lending petty sums and collecting five per cent, no more, no less...
...talents (he gives promise, at different times, of succeeding as a sculptor, a medievalist, a writer), he is unable to assert himself long enough to give any of his abilities a chance. He dares not tell Marlise of his mistress. Andree, and their child, for he knows that the "iron"' mother would never permit him to marry anyone as poor as Andree. But Marlise. after Aime's death, recognizes all her own qualities in her illegitimate grandson, forthwith makes him her heir...
...story of The Iron Mother is told by a wise peasant who has been Marlise's admirer and Aime's friend. His complete acceptance of the French way of doing things, of French values, may be what constitutes the "wholesomeness" of the book; at any rate, he never goes out of his way to lecture Marlise for her avarice. If it had not ruined Aime, he would have regarded it as normal...
...Thiers and the Third Republic, of the Paris Commune, of the changing status of women through all this time. He also expatiates upon the qualities of French soil, wine and scenery in the different provinces surrounding Pargny, which is on the River Aisne. All this gives The Iron Mother, which might have been just another story of a dominating female, a salty, Gallic flavor, which will take U. S. readers into the atmosphere of a culture that is far, far away in spirit. The translation, by Vyvyan Holland, is supple, muscular-French prose rendered in good English prose...